NUM vows to fight planned job cuts of 447 South 32 workers

PERTH-headquartered South 32 was planning to shed 447 jobs at it manganese operations in the Northern Cape, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said yesterday, as the tough economic environment had seen the mining industry deteriorate this year.

The news caused South 32’s shares to fall by as much as 5 percent to R11.50, which was the stock’s lowest level since it listed on the JSE in May.

The stock finished yesterday down 2.73 percent at R11.77, which valued the company at R62.7 billion.

The union estimated that about 24 000 mineworkers had been dismissed so far this year in the mining industry, which contributes about 7 percent to gross domestic product.

The NUM said that the mining company, which was established last year after global mining giant BHP Billiton unbundled non-core assets, gave notice that it was cutting jobs and it called for government intervention.

This as the rapid decline of commodity prices and the subdued demand owing to the lower-than-expected economic growth China resulted in the downturn in the global industry. The prices of manganese have dropped sharply this year.

Lucas Phiri, NUM’s Kimberley regional co-ordinator, said the retrenchment of 447 workers was bad news given the fact that the majority of mineworkers supported 10 people in a family. This meant that 4 470 families would be negatively affected by this retrenchment.

However, South 32 said it was reviewing operations and that the total number of jobs effected would be determined once a review of operations was concluded.

“We are saying enough is enough. We cannot tolerate the arrogance of mine bosses anymore. They make profits, but they cannot share with the workers, but when they are not making a profit workers are the first to be retrenched,” Phiri said.

“We call upon the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) to intervene and halt these retrenchments. (The) DMR must force these employers to comply with the social and labour plans commitment.”

The company said the job cuts followed a review of its manganese business that was announced in August.

“The review is evaluating a number of options across our ore and alloy business and this includes, among other things, the cost structure across these businesses.”

Last month, former NUM general secretary Frans Baleni said that the mining industry was in intensive care amid job cuts across the board.